A decorating question

18 years ago

Perhaps this belongs on the decorating forum, but I haven't spent any time there, and this doesn't seem like a good time to start, since I have to decide this by Monday.

I spent lots of time on cabinets, appliances, lighting, flooring, etc. But virtually no time figuring out how the place ought to be painted. Now I have to give the contractor my paint colors.

I've spent the last few days trying to figure out colors. (I've now bought four quarts of custom colors - finally I think I have a color I like.) But I can't quite decide which things to paint which color.

(I'm mostly redoing the kitchen, but I replaced all the floors downstairs and added a lot of lighting. Because they chopped into the walls and ceiling for the lighting, and because all the base boards are being replaced with the flooring I'm ending up repainting the entire downstairs.)

My cabinets are cherry stained Cordovan. Counter tops are black granite. Floor is very light clear maple. The wall color I have chosen is sort of a pale khaki. (Its called Dusty Road - dirt color.) And I am thinking of using a white for the trim for contrast.

I figure I will paint the base boards, door frames, windows, and ceiling all white. But I'm wondering about the doors. Currently they are painted to match the trim. But I am thinking of painting them to match the wall. Is that reasonable?

Also, my front door has a closet directly next to it. The doors are different styles (front door is "paneled" and closet door is flat), and they are not the same height. Currently they are both painted white, the same as the wall they are on, which de-emphasizes their differences. I assume that painting the door trim a different color from the wall will emphasize the difference in their height. But if I am otherwise going to paint trim different from the wall then changing for these doors seems odd. So do I just remain consistent to the color scheme and not worry too much about them looking different?

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Comments (5)

vwhippiechick
18 years ago
I am no expert but we have painted a lot of houses over the years and we consistently paint the doors the same color as the trim. The only time we have not done this was when we wanted to "hide" a closet door that looked out of place. We painted the trim around the door and the door the same color as the wall. It did make the door fade into the wall but I would only do this in special circumstances.
rosie
18 years ago
Second whippiechick's point that not all trim has to be painted the same. Like you had before with your closet, if you don't want people to look at it don't point it up with detailing. I have your door situation, and the ones I don't want to look at are wall color.

In the kitchen, where you have so much important contrast already, I'm wondering if it would work to take your trim a tone or two deeper toward the wall color to let it blend into the walls more and not distract attention from wherever you want it to focus. ??

I love the look of pale maple and light walls and trim. It's going to be nice.
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kitchenkelly
18 years ago
FWIW, I like the doors to match the trim with the exception of the front door. I think the front door is definitely unique and can be a different color. With that said, I think the trim around the door should still match the other with trim.

Paint your door a different color that compliments your home. I used a redish stain on my entry door because it would match the staircase and not look terrible with the tile. This is not a great pic but you can get the idea. To the left is a powder room with a white door. (Ignore the carpet sample in front of the door.)

HTH
paul_ma
Original Author
18 years ago
Thanks for the input.

I had been thinking of painting the front door an accent color. I have picked out a color and was thinking of painting a wall that color, but I can't decide which wall, so I will wait on that, but it would be easy to do the door. That will make it clearly different from the other door, so maybe the height difference will be less significant.

The reason I was thinking of painting the doors the wall color was that I thought painting them white like the trim would be too much white. But I'm not good at visualizing this kind of thing.

I will be using eggshell finish on the walls. Does everybody use semi-gloss on the trim? Or is it ok to use something less shiny, like the "satin" finish that falls between eggshell and semi-gloss?

Kitchenkelly - your entry looks very nice. Mine is not so grand. My front door just opens into the LR and its a steel door without windows. So it isn't worthy of quite so much emphasis. But its still good for people to know which door to go out.
vwhippiechick
18 years ago
We use oil based semi gloss on our trim and doors. This is a DH thing and I don't think that the oil based paint is absolutely necessary. It does clean up really nicely though. It is much more "scrubbable and washable" than the flat or eggshell finish.